June 2, 1885 - 13:49 p.m. - Clear
Khalil Jaziri
The use of office space was wasted. Khalil was no decorator, but his uncle had poor taste in designs. It was mostly spartan save for the desk—where he was currently sitting—and a couple of chairs for potential clients. The room in the back, though, had all of the medical supplies and equipment. Dorian had asked him to watch the clinic while he went to lunch, “Selfish bastard," but really, Khalil couldn't fault him for that. He was, himself, a selfish person. “Must run in the family," he muttered, leaning forward to prop his head on his closed fist. Taking in a deep breath, his nose wrinkled and he frowned.
“Why does everything have to smell so sterile?" he continued, slumping forward so that his forehead was laying on the desk and his arm was outstretched. “And why couldn't he just close the clinic for the day. I wanted to go to the Red Moon, too," he spoke with a sort of whine laced in his tone. He sighed before straightening himself out, running a swarthy hand through his dark hair. “I guess I can just wait it out for another two hours," he stated, glancing towards the grandfather clock in the room. He didn't understand Dorian's obsession with it, only that he'd kept it right in the front where everyone could see it.
“Alright that's it, if nothing happens in the next twenty minutes, I'm closing shop," regardless if Dorian was back or not. His uncle couldn't be the only one having fun... even if the man was completely hopeless and too dense for his own good.
He had almost reached his arbitrary deadline when, as luck would have it, something happened. The door at the front of the office opened, and three people filed in. The first was a man in a coat that looked a touch too heavy for the season, even with the ridiculously stuffy standards of dress in this country. Everything about him said military, except his hair, which was a tad too long for that. He smelled... odd. There was something unusual about it, underneath the obvious gunpowder, ink, parchment, and slight tang of alchemical reagents. He looked a bit too grumpy for Khalil's taste, and he could already feel his brows furrowing.
The second was a young woman just shy of her twenties. Khalil could almost taste the lily and lilac scent coming from her, and he could feel his mouth watering just a bit. Her sun-colored hair was pulled into a tail, setting against her back and her eyes were a lovely shade of violet-blue. Light enough to be mistaken for pale blue, but Khalil's eyes were trained to notice the smaller details of a person's appearance. She was beautiful in a way that Khalil found himself grinning at her approach, his brow raising just a tad bit in a seductive manner. It worked every time for him; this would be no different. She, however, paid him no mind, and glanced around the office. He almost felt his stomach drop. First time for everything, he supposed.
The third and final guest looked a touch younger than the second, and though they shared the fair complexion fashionable in England, that was where the similarities ended. The second woman had deep brown hair, and big, blue-green eyes with a thick fan of dark lashes. She was dressed in a way that somehow matched the other two without being exactly the same. She smelled more strongly of herbs and reagents than the other two, but it did a poor job of masking the sweetness underneath, like candy floss, vanilla, and lavender. It was clear even without asking that they were here together, and none of them looked the least bit sick.
Hello gorgeous, Khalil flashed a smile in her direction, and stood once he remembered his manners. “Welcome to Dr. Graham's clinc," he started. Even if they weren't sick, he wasn't going to refuse three beautiful people, though the male could be made an exception for. “What can I do for you two beautiful ladies? And you of course," he stated, winking an eye in the man's direction. The blond woman visibly rolled her eyes with an arched brow.
The brunette, though, smiled back, if only briefly, before turning her attention to the clinic itself. Despite his uncle's lack of taste, she seemed quite interested by it for some reason, particularly the few pieces of medical equipment laying around—though of course most of that was in the back.
The man's face smoothed from a resting frown into near-complete blankness, somehow conveying disapproval in the way that it conveyed nothing at all. "Mr. Khalil Jaziri?" he asked flatly. He slid his hands into the pockets of his coat. For a moment he tilted his head slightly, making direct eye contact. His eyes narrowed in something like suspicion for just a moment, but then even this trace of thought faded from his face.
Khalil frowned for a fraction of a second before he grinned. “That is I," he replied. He didn't like the particular look on the man's face, but he wasn't really in the mood—yet of course—to see if he could get a different reaction out of the man. “But you can all call me Khal if it's easier on your tongues," he stated, though he didn't suspect the man would need to. He'd said his name almost perfectly, the accent included. It might have been a trick of the mind, but it wasn't that important. “Especially you two—I'd actually prefer it," he stated towards the brunette and blond. The fair-haired woman rolled her eyes again, earning a short snort from Khalil.
The other one seemed puzzled by this, and tilted her head slightly to the side. "Oh, but the whole name is so nice," she replied, voice lilting with some unidentifiable accent. It wasn't quite any of those he'd heard in London. "Khalil. It's musical, almost."
The man sighed through his nose. "Mr. Jaziri," he continued, not accepting even the milder form of the offer, "you are familiar with a woman by the name of Elizabeth Demsky, are you not? We need to ask you a few questions."
“Depends on what you mean by familiar," he responded, tilting his head to the left. He knew the name, and the person it belonged to, but he wasn't going to admit to that just yet. He'd seen her just the other day. “Why do you need to ask me questions, though? I'm sure you could just go ask her," he stated, frowning just slightly. Did she say something to the officials?
“She can't; she's dead," the lily-scented woman answered in a dull tone. Her eyes were narrowed in his direction though, almost as if she were accusing him of doing the deed.
“Whoa there, princess," he spoke, settling himself down in the chair. “She's dead? Are you sure?" he had to ask. How could she be dead? He'd been with her the other day just for their meeting, but he hadn't heard from her since. Now that he thought about it, she hadn't contacted him in at least a day. That was strange of her.
“It's Miss Whitaker, and yes, we are certain. She's in the morgue if you'd like to confirm for yourself, but we'd like to ask you a few questions before you do," she stated, her expression smoothing out a bit.
“What do you want to know?"
"The victims parents have indicated that you were trysting with their daughter," the man said bluntly. Clearly this one did not bother being delicate. "As such entanglements commonly provide motives for murder, we are very interested in what you were doing two nights ago, around twenty-one hundred." He pushed his glasses—severely-angled rectangular frames—up the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand back down to his side. It moved the hem of his coat just a little—Khalil could see the grip of a long-barreled pistol strapped to his leg.
Khalil groaned into his hand. Of course her parents would say something like that. “It's actually not that complicated. I was only with her..." he paused for a moment to remember how many times he'd been with her, “a few times. And two nights ago I was picking up my uncle from a night out."
In other words, Dorian had drank himself to sleep at the Red Moon and Liang had asked Khalil to retrieve him. He frowned for a second. That happened slightly earlier than the time the man spoke of. “Ah, I was with Eli...za...beth," he slowed his speech once he realized he'd spoken Elizabeth's name. He groaned again. Might as well serve myself on a silver plate.
“But look, I didn't kill her. I don't kill people," he spoke, his lips pulling into a deep frown. He didn't kill people unless he had to, and the one person he did kill...
“Were you there the entire night with her?" Miss Whitaker asked, bringing him out of his reverie. There was something soft in her eyes when she'd asked him, but maybe that was just a play on the lighting. Khalil pursed his lips together.
“No—I didn't stay with her long. I was only there for ten minutes. She said she had someone else she was meeting so I left," he answered. It wasn't much of an answer, he knew, but that was all he could give them. “Didn't you search her apartment?" he decided to ask. “You must have found something, otherwise you wouldn't be so interested in what I was doing two nights ago."
"What we found was her corpse, stuffed up a chimney, with body temperature placing her time of death in that interval," the man replied brusquely. For all that, though, the way his eyes narrowed at Khalil was more assessing than accusatory.
He turned to his associates. "Miss Blythe, Miss Whitaker, please step outside for a moment." It wasn't clear why he was asking them to leave now, considering the implication that they'd seen the crime scene. It certainly couldn't be any concern for their sensibilities as women if that was so.
The brunette—Miss Blythe, apparently—nodded slightly, and looped her arm through one of Miss Whitaker's. "Shall we?"
Miss Whitaker looked confused for a second, her eyes glancing from Miss Blythe to the man. “Very well," she replied, letting Miss Blythe lead her away. Once they were out of sight, Khalil sighed heavily and slumped forward in his chair.
“I'd offer you a seat, but you're clearly after something else." He wouldn't ask his female companions to leave, after all, if he were interested in anything else Khalil had to say.
“What can I help you with, Mr..." he trailed off, giving the man a chance to state his name. If he so desired, that is. Chances were, a grump like him wouldn't even bother. He'd just get straight to the questions and the reason to why his associates left. But what did Khalil know?
"Ramsey," he replied with a short nod. Raising his arms, he crossed them over his chest, brows knitting slightly. "Your paramour's parents pointed us to you because they don't like you, and they don't like you because you aren't English. They all but said it. I came here to do my due diligence, just in case there was something to the suspicion, and while you haven't given me more reason to rule you out than I already had..." He trailed off, apparently deciding something before he continued flatly.
"There were no puncture marks on Miss Demsky. That doesn't exclude you entirely, but it is suggestive." He dropped his arms, reaching back into his pocket, from which he extracted a glass vial, stoppered with a cork. Inside was what looked like a scrap of fabric. "I was able to detect an unusual scent on her body that I could not identify. Perhaps your nose might succeed where mine has failed. You might consider it a chance to prove your good intentions." The hardness of his stare said the rest without much need for words: lie to me, and I'll know.
Khalil blinked in mild surprise. The only people who knew what he was, were Dorian, and Liang. No one else knew, and Khalil had made damn sure he was careful. He narrowed his eyes at Ramsey, but sighed heavily. There wasn't any point in trying to pretend he didn't know what Ramsey was talking about, nor was their any point trying to deny it.
“Hand it here," he stated, his hand outstretching to retrieve the vial. Once he had it, he popped the top off and pursed his lips together. He raised the vial close to his nose and took a deep breath. “Well... shit," he stated, furrowing his brows. There were a few scents that were mingled together. One, he could tell wasn't human, but the others were all mixed together.
“Smells like you have yourself a shifter. You do know what those are, right?" he asked. Chances were that Ramsey knew what a shifter was if he knew what Khalil was. “They smell like a dog's ass laced with pheromones, but this one..." he trailed off, taking another whiff of the vial. It smelled different.
“It smells a little... off. Maybe it went rabid?" That didn't seem right, though. There would be more bodies strewn about if it was rabid. “Was there anything else that you found?" he decided to ask. He was trying to identify some of the scents that were laced with the shifter's. Some of it smelled familiar, like things he would find in his uncle's clinic, but the scent was too mild. He needed something with a stronger scent.
Reaching into his other pocket, Ramsey produced a sealed plastic bag with a clump of what looked like fur in it. "I could smell the shifter myself," he replied, handing the bag over as well, "but the chemical smell is different from outright disease. It's too faint for me to say anything more discerning, but if you can identify even some of the components, we can take it from there."
Khalil shivered slightly. He really didn't want to smell the fur, but if it would help clear his name... he didn't have much of a choice. “You need a better nose," Khalil muttered beneath his breath. He took the sealed pack, and opened it. He took the clump of fur out, and lifted it to his nose, inhaling as deeply as he could. “There is a faint smell of something..." he began, closing his eyes to clear his mind a bit. The scent was almost like alcohol, laced with a type of opiate. Coca, was the first word that entered his thoughts, as he took slower breath.
“I can smell faint traces of coca," he finally spoke. “There's something else laced with it that I can't quite make out, but I definitely smell coca. And it's not the processed cocaine, either. It's purer than that," he continued, frowning further. They had to have used the oils from the crushed coca leaves and seeds in order to make a strand that pure.
Ramsey frowned slightly, but then nodded. He headed for the door, almost as if he were leaving without his things, but when the two women reappeared, his intentions became more obvious. "Coca laced with something else. What kind of substance would that make?"
The little one, Miss Blythe, blinked, her eyes rounding in something like surprise. "Coca is for stimulants," she chirped. "But... usually only addictive and unpredictable ones. Weaker concoctions made with it might help someone stay awake if they didn't want to sleep, but with the right other ingredients, it could induce hallucinations, and probably inhibit reasoning, as well as temporarily make someone much stronger than usual."
Ramsey nodded slightly. "I think I know a market for that." His eyes, a dull purple, slid to Khalil. "If you smelled that again, do you think you could identify the person taking it in a crowd?"
“As long as they were the only one who smelled like a dog's ass," he replied, leaning back in his chair. He'd tucked the fur back into the bag and tossed it on the table a little further from him. He didn't particularly like being used in such a fashion, A bloody hound, but if he could find out who killed Elizabeth... well he'd just have to put his nose to work.
“Yeah, I could identify the person who took it. It's a very distinctive smell," he began, watching as Miss Whitaker arched her brow. He grinned and tapped his nose. “You'd know it, too, if you were a doctor," he explained. Clearly Ramsey didn't want to expose what Khalil was to the women, so he had to sate Miss Whitaker's curiosity. He would have much preferred to do it another way, though.
"Good," Ramsey replied. If he sensed Khalil's dissatisfaction, he didn't show it. "We'll be back at twenty-three hundred. Don't dress too nicely."
“And here I thought I could dazzle you all in my nice clothes."
“Why does everything have to smell so sterile?" he continued, slumping forward so that his forehead was laying on the desk and his arm was outstretched. “And why couldn't he just close the clinic for the day. I wanted to go to the Red Moon, too," he spoke with a sort of whine laced in his tone. He sighed before straightening himself out, running a swarthy hand through his dark hair. “I guess I can just wait it out for another two hours," he stated, glancing towards the grandfather clock in the room. He didn't understand Dorian's obsession with it, only that he'd kept it right in the front where everyone could see it.
“Alright that's it, if nothing happens in the next twenty minutes, I'm closing shop," regardless if Dorian was back or not. His uncle couldn't be the only one having fun... even if the man was completely hopeless and too dense for his own good.
He had almost reached his arbitrary deadline when, as luck would have it, something happened. The door at the front of the office opened, and three people filed in. The first was a man in a coat that looked a touch too heavy for the season, even with the ridiculously stuffy standards of dress in this country. Everything about him said military, except his hair, which was a tad too long for that. He smelled... odd. There was something unusual about it, underneath the obvious gunpowder, ink, parchment, and slight tang of alchemical reagents. He looked a bit too grumpy for Khalil's taste, and he could already feel his brows furrowing.
The second was a young woman just shy of her twenties. Khalil could almost taste the lily and lilac scent coming from her, and he could feel his mouth watering just a bit. Her sun-colored hair was pulled into a tail, setting against her back and her eyes were a lovely shade of violet-blue. Light enough to be mistaken for pale blue, but Khalil's eyes were trained to notice the smaller details of a person's appearance. She was beautiful in a way that Khalil found himself grinning at her approach, his brow raising just a tad bit in a seductive manner. It worked every time for him; this would be no different. She, however, paid him no mind, and glanced around the office. He almost felt his stomach drop. First time for everything, he supposed.
The third and final guest looked a touch younger than the second, and though they shared the fair complexion fashionable in England, that was where the similarities ended. The second woman had deep brown hair, and big, blue-green eyes with a thick fan of dark lashes. She was dressed in a way that somehow matched the other two without being exactly the same. She smelled more strongly of herbs and reagents than the other two, but it did a poor job of masking the sweetness underneath, like candy floss, vanilla, and lavender. It was clear even without asking that they were here together, and none of them looked the least bit sick.
Hello gorgeous, Khalil flashed a smile in her direction, and stood once he remembered his manners. “Welcome to Dr. Graham's clinc," he started. Even if they weren't sick, he wasn't going to refuse three beautiful people, though the male could be made an exception for. “What can I do for you two beautiful ladies? And you of course," he stated, winking an eye in the man's direction. The blond woman visibly rolled her eyes with an arched brow.
The brunette, though, smiled back, if only briefly, before turning her attention to the clinic itself. Despite his uncle's lack of taste, she seemed quite interested by it for some reason, particularly the few pieces of medical equipment laying around—though of course most of that was in the back.
The man's face smoothed from a resting frown into near-complete blankness, somehow conveying disapproval in the way that it conveyed nothing at all. "Mr. Khalil Jaziri?" he asked flatly. He slid his hands into the pockets of his coat. For a moment he tilted his head slightly, making direct eye contact. His eyes narrowed in something like suspicion for just a moment, but then even this trace of thought faded from his face.
Khalil frowned for a fraction of a second before he grinned. “That is I," he replied. He didn't like the particular look on the man's face, but he wasn't really in the mood—yet of course—to see if he could get a different reaction out of the man. “But you can all call me Khal if it's easier on your tongues," he stated, though he didn't suspect the man would need to. He'd said his name almost perfectly, the accent included. It might have been a trick of the mind, but it wasn't that important. “Especially you two—I'd actually prefer it," he stated towards the brunette and blond. The fair-haired woman rolled her eyes again, earning a short snort from Khalil.
The other one seemed puzzled by this, and tilted her head slightly to the side. "Oh, but the whole name is so nice," she replied, voice lilting with some unidentifiable accent. It wasn't quite any of those he'd heard in London. "Khalil. It's musical, almost."
The man sighed through his nose. "Mr. Jaziri," he continued, not accepting even the milder form of the offer, "you are familiar with a woman by the name of Elizabeth Demsky, are you not? We need to ask you a few questions."
“Depends on what you mean by familiar," he responded, tilting his head to the left. He knew the name, and the person it belonged to, but he wasn't going to admit to that just yet. He'd seen her just the other day. “Why do you need to ask me questions, though? I'm sure you could just go ask her," he stated, frowning just slightly. Did she say something to the officials?
“She can't; she's dead," the lily-scented woman answered in a dull tone. Her eyes were narrowed in his direction though, almost as if she were accusing him of doing the deed.
“Whoa there, princess," he spoke, settling himself down in the chair. “She's dead? Are you sure?" he had to ask. How could she be dead? He'd been with her the other day just for their meeting, but he hadn't heard from her since. Now that he thought about it, she hadn't contacted him in at least a day. That was strange of her.
“It's Miss Whitaker, and yes, we are certain. She's in the morgue if you'd like to confirm for yourself, but we'd like to ask you a few questions before you do," she stated, her expression smoothing out a bit.
“What do you want to know?"
"The victims parents have indicated that you were trysting with their daughter," the man said bluntly. Clearly this one did not bother being delicate. "As such entanglements commonly provide motives for murder, we are very interested in what you were doing two nights ago, around twenty-one hundred." He pushed his glasses—severely-angled rectangular frames—up the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand back down to his side. It moved the hem of his coat just a little—Khalil could see the grip of a long-barreled pistol strapped to his leg.
Khalil groaned into his hand. Of course her parents would say something like that. “It's actually not that complicated. I was only with her..." he paused for a moment to remember how many times he'd been with her, “a few times. And two nights ago I was picking up my uncle from a night out."
In other words, Dorian had drank himself to sleep at the Red Moon and Liang had asked Khalil to retrieve him. He frowned for a second. That happened slightly earlier than the time the man spoke of. “Ah, I was with Eli...za...beth," he slowed his speech once he realized he'd spoken Elizabeth's name. He groaned again. Might as well serve myself on a silver plate.
“But look, I didn't kill her. I don't kill people," he spoke, his lips pulling into a deep frown. He didn't kill people unless he had to, and the one person he did kill...
“Were you there the entire night with her?" Miss Whitaker asked, bringing him out of his reverie. There was something soft in her eyes when she'd asked him, but maybe that was just a play on the lighting. Khalil pursed his lips together.
“No—I didn't stay with her long. I was only there for ten minutes. She said she had someone else she was meeting so I left," he answered. It wasn't much of an answer, he knew, but that was all he could give them. “Didn't you search her apartment?" he decided to ask. “You must have found something, otherwise you wouldn't be so interested in what I was doing two nights ago."
"What we found was her corpse, stuffed up a chimney, with body temperature placing her time of death in that interval," the man replied brusquely. For all that, though, the way his eyes narrowed at Khalil was more assessing than accusatory.
He turned to his associates. "Miss Blythe, Miss Whitaker, please step outside for a moment." It wasn't clear why he was asking them to leave now, considering the implication that they'd seen the crime scene. It certainly couldn't be any concern for their sensibilities as women if that was so.
The brunette—Miss Blythe, apparently—nodded slightly, and looped her arm through one of Miss Whitaker's. "Shall we?"
Miss Whitaker looked confused for a second, her eyes glancing from Miss Blythe to the man. “Very well," she replied, letting Miss Blythe lead her away. Once they were out of sight, Khalil sighed heavily and slumped forward in his chair.
“I'd offer you a seat, but you're clearly after something else." He wouldn't ask his female companions to leave, after all, if he were interested in anything else Khalil had to say.
“What can I help you with, Mr..." he trailed off, giving the man a chance to state his name. If he so desired, that is. Chances were, a grump like him wouldn't even bother. He'd just get straight to the questions and the reason to why his associates left. But what did Khalil know?
"Ramsey," he replied with a short nod. Raising his arms, he crossed them over his chest, brows knitting slightly. "Your paramour's parents pointed us to you because they don't like you, and they don't like you because you aren't English. They all but said it. I came here to do my due diligence, just in case there was something to the suspicion, and while you haven't given me more reason to rule you out than I already had..." He trailed off, apparently deciding something before he continued flatly.
"There were no puncture marks on Miss Demsky. That doesn't exclude you entirely, but it is suggestive." He dropped his arms, reaching back into his pocket, from which he extracted a glass vial, stoppered with a cork. Inside was what looked like a scrap of fabric. "I was able to detect an unusual scent on her body that I could not identify. Perhaps your nose might succeed where mine has failed. You might consider it a chance to prove your good intentions." The hardness of his stare said the rest without much need for words: lie to me, and I'll know.
Khalil blinked in mild surprise. The only people who knew what he was, were Dorian, and Liang. No one else knew, and Khalil had made damn sure he was careful. He narrowed his eyes at Ramsey, but sighed heavily. There wasn't any point in trying to pretend he didn't know what Ramsey was talking about, nor was their any point trying to deny it.
“Hand it here," he stated, his hand outstretching to retrieve the vial. Once he had it, he popped the top off and pursed his lips together. He raised the vial close to his nose and took a deep breath. “Well... shit," he stated, furrowing his brows. There were a few scents that were mingled together. One, he could tell wasn't human, but the others were all mixed together.
“Smells like you have yourself a shifter. You do know what those are, right?" he asked. Chances were that Ramsey knew what a shifter was if he knew what Khalil was. “They smell like a dog's ass laced with pheromones, but this one..." he trailed off, taking another whiff of the vial. It smelled different.
“It smells a little... off. Maybe it went rabid?" That didn't seem right, though. There would be more bodies strewn about if it was rabid. “Was there anything else that you found?" he decided to ask. He was trying to identify some of the scents that were laced with the shifter's. Some of it smelled familiar, like things he would find in his uncle's clinic, but the scent was too mild. He needed something with a stronger scent.
Reaching into his other pocket, Ramsey produced a sealed plastic bag with a clump of what looked like fur in it. "I could smell the shifter myself," he replied, handing the bag over as well, "but the chemical smell is different from outright disease. It's too faint for me to say anything more discerning, but if you can identify even some of the components, we can take it from there."
Khalil shivered slightly. He really didn't want to smell the fur, but if it would help clear his name... he didn't have much of a choice. “You need a better nose," Khalil muttered beneath his breath. He took the sealed pack, and opened it. He took the clump of fur out, and lifted it to his nose, inhaling as deeply as he could. “There is a faint smell of something..." he began, closing his eyes to clear his mind a bit. The scent was almost like alcohol, laced with a type of opiate. Coca, was the first word that entered his thoughts, as he took slower breath.
“I can smell faint traces of coca," he finally spoke. “There's something else laced with it that I can't quite make out, but I definitely smell coca. And it's not the processed cocaine, either. It's purer than that," he continued, frowning further. They had to have used the oils from the crushed coca leaves and seeds in order to make a strand that pure.
Ramsey frowned slightly, but then nodded. He headed for the door, almost as if he were leaving without his things, but when the two women reappeared, his intentions became more obvious. "Coca laced with something else. What kind of substance would that make?"
The little one, Miss Blythe, blinked, her eyes rounding in something like surprise. "Coca is for stimulants," she chirped. "But... usually only addictive and unpredictable ones. Weaker concoctions made with it might help someone stay awake if they didn't want to sleep, but with the right other ingredients, it could induce hallucinations, and probably inhibit reasoning, as well as temporarily make someone much stronger than usual."
Ramsey nodded slightly. "I think I know a market for that." His eyes, a dull purple, slid to Khalil. "If you smelled that again, do you think you could identify the person taking it in a crowd?"
“As long as they were the only one who smelled like a dog's ass," he replied, leaning back in his chair. He'd tucked the fur back into the bag and tossed it on the table a little further from him. He didn't particularly like being used in such a fashion, A bloody hound, but if he could find out who killed Elizabeth... well he'd just have to put his nose to work.
“Yeah, I could identify the person who took it. It's a very distinctive smell," he began, watching as Miss Whitaker arched her brow. He grinned and tapped his nose. “You'd know it, too, if you were a doctor," he explained. Clearly Ramsey didn't want to expose what Khalil was to the women, so he had to sate Miss Whitaker's curiosity. He would have much preferred to do it another way, though.
"Good," Ramsey replied. If he sensed Khalil's dissatisfaction, he didn't show it. "We'll be back at twenty-three hundred. Don't dress too nicely."
“And here I thought I could dazzle you all in my nice clothes."